A few years from now I expect that you will not hear the term “Software Defined Networking” that much. To us it will just be “networking.” Similar to how the term “Big Data” will probably just be “Data” at some point. That’s how evolution in the IT industry works, the buzz word or concept of today can become the industry standard of tomorrow. In the history of computer science, it is also apparent that software always wins. What is defined in hardware in the beginning will eventually give way to an industry standard interface that software will then be responsible for managing. This is not a new or surprising concept in most IT silos. However networking is certainly the last remaining “ivory tower” to evolve in this manner. That is changing. Lets step back and take a look at compute for a moment. I recently had the opportunity to meet with HP’s Deepak Munjal. He is the leading technical SME for HP’s SDN initiative. He made a very interesting...

I’m currently writing an internal process for updating ESXi hosts to 5.5 (using VMware Update Manager) when the Cisco Nexus 1000v is deployed. I will do my very best to keep from waxing philosophical about my utter distaste for the 1000v in this post. If your environment is making use of this 3rd party switch, then there are some steps you need to take when creating the 5.5 VUM baseline image to make sure you include the appropriate VIBs. If you create a standard 5.5 VUM baseline, and then scan a host against it for compatibility, you will notice the following exception if the 1000v is deployed: This is pretty straightforward. It is telling you that your nice new 5.5 baseline is missing the 1000v VIBs and if you push this deployment you will nuke the 1000v off of the host. So we need to create a custom ISO and associated baseline that includes the 1000v VIB. We will jump into PowerCLI and add the appropriate software depots. The...